


Death Defying

by Coal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, Dementors, Frosting, Gen, Lighthearted, Necromancy, Ridiculousness, dark creature rights, dementor revolution, life after death, unlikely mentor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 00:18:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6729406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coal/pseuds/Coal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is not a dementor, but he is friends with one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

YEAR THREE

Braith slipped into the train, absently going down the aisle while his brothers and sisters did the same and circled the now stopped train. Really, existence after death had turned out to be so boring. He could feel a powerful wizard on the train—so he figured he should see who it was. Looking at children was, really, annoying and he could vaguely hear one of his sisters talk about how beneath them it was to have to stalk the Hogwarts train. Still, it was something to do. 

He opened the carriage door and inspected the group. One sickly adult werewolf, one girl, one stupid looking boy, a rat that felt like a wizard, and there… the powerful one. It was interesting to see how even the powerful boy tensed up in fright at the sight of him. His bright green eyes were wide and, perhaps, about to cry? Braith unknowingly leaned closer to the young wizard. It was just so very interesting how the boy reacted even though Braith could tell the boy had the power to fight him off easily. Well, mortals were rather sensitive to his kind. Funny, when Braith had been mortal he’d got off on horror and being scared and hurt. Maybe his siblings were the same? Mortals that were really fucked up and got off on self-destruction got to become hated monsters after death. (Braith honestly had no idea.) Maybe if he messed with the powerful boy enough he’d become a dementor, too, when he died. 

Suddenly the werewolf sent a blinding, awful animal at him. He could feel his flesh burning and his whole body being repelled back, though by the end he was willingly running (gliding) out of the train to rejoin the Dementors who were outside. 

_“FUCK FUCK FUCK.”_

_“Oh, haha! Did they chase you out?”_

_“UGH. YES. The fuckers.”_

Another dementor drifted closer to him, their “leader” who was radiating concern even while the female that had first noticed him was still laughing. _“You shouldn’t have gotten so close. You’re still young so it’ll hurt more when they cast those Patronus charms.”_

_“Patronus? Fuck. Well, there was this really powerful kid that I wanted to check out. Bright green eyes, you know. I didn’t realize I’d overstayed my welcome until it was too late.”_

The older dementor twitched, like he wanted to sigh at Braith. The female circled them both, still giggling. Their mouths didn’t move when they talked, but hers was open as she laughed. _“Well, we should stick to the train. We’ll be at Hogwarts soon and we’ve orders to look for the animagus.”_

_“Right. Oh. OH. WAIT. There was a rat ani-whatever in the train with Green Eyes!”_

The female scoffed at him. _“We’re looking for a dog, not a rat. You should let those of us who were actually magical once take point.”_

Braith wanted to slap her, but the older dementor purposefully flew in-between them. _“Both of you need to relax. Let’s catch up to the train.”_

&&

Braith would have sworn he wasn’t low enough to cause problems to the Quidditch match, but it seemed the snitch had moved up into their area and one of the seekers was still chasing after it. Stupid thing to do, really. Though, as Braith looked closer, it seemed to be Green Eyes again. 

When he saw his fellow dementors dive after him, he indignantly moved closer as well. _“Hey! Back the fuck off the kid!”_ The others stilled and the boy grabbed onto the snitch, dropping slightly as the ice that had already crawled over him became a hindrance, but at least Braith’s brethren weren’t causing more ice to grow on the boy. _“Move back and let him go. Go back to stealing backpackers and drunks from the wizard village and leave the school kids alone.”_

When the others moved back, all staring at Braith now, even Harry turned his head to see the lone dementor, arms still raised and ready if he had to start fighting off his siblings. Braith purposefully looked over his shoulder and nodded his head towards the boy and started drifting further up, pleased when the other dementors did the same. 

&&

The next time Braith came across the Green Eyes, he was running with what looked like a hobo by the lake from other dementors. Braith wanted to throttle all of them. He’d spent some of the year watching, alright, stalking the kid and learned that his name was Harry and he had some complicated shit going on his life. The poltergeist Peeves was an incorrigible gossip and had told him a lot more, but for the moment the details weren’t important. What was important was that everybody seemed to be out to kill or drive the kid crazy and Braith thought that would be too wasteful. 

Braith rushed down, his back to the two wizards, and hissed at the oncoming flock of dementors. _“What did I say about staying the fuck back from the kid!”_ Only half of the group actually stopped at seeing Braith. The others kept rushing forward and Braith flared his cloak and did his best do give a guttural roar at them. _“BACK OFF.”_ That stopped the rest of them from advancing but one of them, the one who often took the role of their leader, drifted ahead of the others. 

_“The dog animagus, our target, is there. He’s the whole point we were sent here.”_

_“Well, that’s stupid,”_ Braith decided. _“Why are we even listening to the wizards? I mean, seriously, I don’t remember signing any fucking contracts with them.”_

A female dementor, the one who had laughed at Braith on the train, floated above the rest of the group. _“Actually, I’ve been keeping an eye on the werewolf and I learned that the dog animagus isn’t even guilty. The rat one is.”_

The leader dementor looked between the female and Braith. _“Our orders were to go after the dog,”_ he pointed out, but his hesitant tone killed the antsy shifting that many of the others were indulging in. Now the whole group was subdued, and confused. They, the dementors, had always obeyed the wizards. It was what they did, what the older ones before they willingly faded did and what they were told they did when they first came into being and were drawn towards their fellow dementors. However, there wasn’t any instinctual need or pull to do so, it’s just what the old ones had told them, and none of the old ones had gone with their group to Hogwarts. None of them could defend why they were supposed to listen to the living. 

When the pause seemed to draw out too long, one of the dementors in the back shouted, _“Why are we listening to the witches? I wasn’t one of them! I was a devil worshipper, but I didn’t have magic powers as a human.”_

Various words and noises of agreement were quickly spread around, even when some admitted to being magical when alive they also did not see the point in obeying. Others were claiming they had been questioning this very subject for ages but that they didn’t say why they hadn’t voiced it until now.

Braith couldn’t have been prouder of himself. Accidently inspiring a rebellion (or revolution) had been on his bucket list and he hadn’t actually considered the list still being viable after becoming a dementor. The female and the leader drifted over to him while the rest of the group went on with chatting. The female pointed out, _“The wizards have run back to the castle so you can stop flaring your cloak now.”_

_“Right,”_ Braith let the distressed cloth relax against his bony body. _“So I’m guessing no one is going to report back to Azkaban or the Ministry.”_

_“No,”_ the leader agreed, but he still seemed very uncomfortable with the situation. _“I don’t think anyone will.”_

_“No bloody point,”_ the female declared. 

Braith laughed, a rasping, clicking sound emitting as he did. Beneath their hoods, the mummified faces of the other two twisted to look especially uncomfortable. 

After a few beats, the female used her brows to narrow the gaping black holes that passed for her eyes. _“Never do that again.”_

_“What? Don’t laugh? The situation is funny!”_

_“You’ve got a damn weird laugh, though.”_

_“Oh, fuck you. I’m going to keep watch over Green Eyes and I don’t want to find anymore of you jerks cornering him.”_

The leader shook his head and turned to face the others. Already some had left or were slipping off in small groups. _“Guess I’ll do the same. Go off alone, I mean.”_

The female cleared her throat and a sound like shattering glass emitted softly from her throat. _“I’ll go with you. If that’s alright, actually.”_

_“Um. Oh… okay.”_

Braith wished he could roll his eyes. _“You guys are dorks! I wipe my hands of you all!”_

 

SUMMER 

 

Braith was weighing the pros and cons of killing one of Green Eyes’s family members. On the pro side, they deserved it and it would benefit the kid. On the cons, it could inspire some of the wizards jerks to butt in and take Green Eyes away or actually try to send him away. He hadn’t heard any word about just what was going on with the dementor scene—the fact that they had one at all wasn’t even something he was sure about, but as he circled the park where Green Eyes was he caught sight or one peeking out of an underpass tunnel. 

He wasn’t going to approach the other dementor until he saw Green Eyes and the mini Fat Ass heading into the tunnel. 

Harry was halfway through casting the Patronus spell when Braith swooped in and shoved the other dementor in the wall. 

_“What the shit?”_ the other dementor hissed, innocently bewildered as he focused on Braith. 

_“Green Eyes there is mine, no fucking with him. I thought I established that at Hogwarts. I only shouted it, like, ten times as everybody was splitting up.”_

There was a beat of silence where the other dementor processed that. _“I wasn’t with that group, I was at Azkaban. Some others came and told us we were all boycotting working for the wizards.”_

_“Oh.”_ Awkward. _“Well, you can’t have these two,”_ Braith waved a hand at the shivering teenagers. They were both still on the ground, but Green Eyes was starting to calm down. It was his third time being rescued by a dementor after all. He had to get over the novelty of it at some point. _“Were the ones at the Ministry notified as well?”_

The dementor nodded, the movement jerky and telling of how young he was. _“Yeah, the old ones still remaining decided to go to the continent to spread the word to everybody else too. After telling us to be smart about hunting, that is.”_

_“Be smart as in don’t go after Harry fucking Potter—yes, it is good they thought to _try_ to tell people to be smart.”_

The other dementor didn’t respond, radiating embarrassment as his shoulders slowly hitched up. 

_“I think you should go.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Look, just… be smarter about who you go after if they’re magical. People make a fuss when it’s someone who’s worth something. You gotta go after who won’t be missed, or assholes, if just to not run the risk of getting into trouble yourself."_

The dementor started to drift back, then tilted his head as he thought of something. _“Say, are we actually at risk from the wizards? I mean, I know they have the Patronus charm, but,”_

_“But it fucking BURNS.”_

_“What?”_

_“Don’t ever let those glowing animals touch you, alright? Just run. Shit hurts.”_

_“Oh, man. Thanks for the heads up.”_

_“No problem,”_ Braith waved as the other dementor left. _“Take care of yourself!”_ When he turned to check on Green Eyes he was surprised to see that while he remained, albeit standing at the other end of the tunnel, the fat one had already run off. 

“Why are you helping me?” 

_“Why are you asking me questions when the living can’t ever understand us?”_ Braith half hoped the kid would understand him, but to Harry it looked like Braith was only staring at him. _“Ugh. This is going to be rough on your nerves, kid, but you should really be getting home now.”_ He tapped on his wrist and then out to the night sky. 

Green Eyes made a confused face, one that made him seem even younger than he really was. “You… think it’s late?” 

Braith inclined his head and once again bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t roll his eyes. _“I don’t know why I let myself get attached to you, but I’m glad you’re not as stupid as some others around you. Come on,”_ Braith started moving towards him, amused at how Harry jumped back but let him pass by him to exit the underpass. He started moving back towards the park, intent on leading Green Eyes to Privet Drive, but Harry didn’t follow him. He stopped by the swing set Harry had been on earlier and made a hurry-up motion with one of his bony, clawed hands. 

Harry stared for another few moments, then loudly declared. “I’ve gone mad.” 

Braith shrugged and somehow that comforted Harry as he relaxed some and slowly made to join the dementor. 


	2. Chapter 2

STILL SUMMER 

 

Green Eyes had received four birthday cakes and offered the ugliest one to Braith. The dementor loomed over the bed that Harry had all his mail and the cake boxes spread out on. The teenager had taken to wearing more layers now that Braith was loitering about more openly, but the trembling and ill effects were slowly lessening on the kid. Braith had no idea if it was because the kid was so powerful or if that was normal. Children were supposed to be more adaptable than adults, but only up to a point. Those in Azkaban, where Braith used to be stationed, never got used to them, but Harry was actually able to smile again, even while sitting barley two feet away from where Braith was. 

“That one’s from Hagrid,” Harry explained and rubbed absently at his arms. “His baking always ends up hard, but I think he makes up for that with frosting.” 

Braith dragged a finger across the frosting and hesitantly placed it in his mouth. His rough, black tongue swirled around his finger and he was moderately surprised that he could somewhat taste the sugar. It was somehow very powdery and bittersweet, at least in his mouth, but it was something. He hadn’t thought to try food at all until Harry had pushed the cake toward him. 

He wondered, with no small amount of unease, how many other things that he and the other dementors just hadn’t thought to try again or do. In life he had always been trying new things and testing the boundaries and rules, but in death he just… hadn’t thought to try anything. 

That would have to change. 

“You know, you could just write down why you’re following me about. Not that the charades aren’t fun, but, yeah,” Harry trailed off lamely and took a bite from the cake from his female friend. It looked to be the most carefully made. The other three had a real home-made vibe, but Hermione’s looked like a lot more time than necessary had been put in. 

_“That would be boring. Besides, it’s sort of funny that you aren’t entirely sure how intelligent I am. Although if you say “come here, boy” at all I’m not going to be at fault for smothering you in your sleep.”_

“Last summer, I couldn’t wait to get back to Hogwarts. I had run away and thought they wouldn’t let me back in, for accidentally performing magic on a muggle, but… then it was all okay. The whole time I just thought about Hogwarts, though. But, when I think about it… I have friends there, but I’m in danger there all the time. Here it’s just… well, the Dursely’s won’t kill me.” 

Braith dug his finger into the cake and hooked some actual cake along with the mound of frosting before lifting it up to his mouth. He had already resolved to protect Harry as much as he could, but the kid was still going to return to Hogwarts and it would be difficult to keep an eye on him there. Likely the wards would now be able to repel him and he wasn’t sure if encouraging Harry to stick close to the Dark Forest where Braith could roam was counterproductive or not. He hadn’t run into anything besides wizards or other ghosts that could repel a dementor, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything lurking about. 

“I really thought, since there’s magical wards and stuff, I could at least spend the summer with Sirius, but since Pettigrew got away,” Harry sniffled slightly. Braith figured it was due to the cold he was inducing in the room rather than depression. If anything there was an angry glint in those green eyes. The dementor scowled, not that it was a noticeable expression on his ghoulish face, but the movement of his face still caught Harry’s eyes. “What?” 

Rolling his head back and letting out a rattling whoosh of air from his occasionally functioning lungs, he pointed his spit covered finger to Harry’s desk where his half-finished summer homework sat. 

Ecstatic, Harry jumped off the bed, nearly knocking two of the cakes onto the floor, and snatched up some parchment and a quill. Braith took the items and then after a moment shook the parchment pointedly. Harry caught on and grabbed a thick textbook and laid it next to the cake from Hagrid. Braith carefully set the parchment on the text and struggled to hold the quill in a tight grip. 

He wrote in jagged lines and his periods looked like exaggerated commas, but Harry was at least patient as Braith struggled through the task. His new hands were certainly not made to do human tasks, maybe for holding down large animals and digging under the muscles of his prey, but not something like writing. 

_BRAITH WILL OWL, GUARD IN FOREST, PROTECT HARRY_

“Braith?” 

The dementor pointed his free hand to point himself, then as Harry nodded in acknowledgement he dug his finger into the cake to take another mouthful as he wrote another line. 

_DEADSPEAK, PEEVES FRIEND, DONT TELL OTHERS_

Harry frowned at the second line in confusion. “I get don’t tell the others, I already wasn’t planning on it, not after the parselmouth disaster.” He looked up to Braith who tapped on his mouth and then tapped on Peeves’s name. “Deadspeak… oh, so you’re friends with Peeves and you guys can talk to each other.” Braith nodded but then tapped deadspeak again and pointed to Harry. “What? I… can I learn to talk to you?” Again, Braith nodded. “Oh, cool! I’ll have to check Diagon Alley when I go there for my school supplies.” Braith shook his head and used the quill to draw a line and then another line branching off it. “Um… oh, in an alley connected to Diagonally? Like, Knockturn?” Braith gave him a thumbs up that had the young teenager laughing. Apparently Braith was very amusing for looking for gruesome and doing simple things like that.

 

YEAR FOUR

Harry tugged on the cuffs of his shirt over his knuckles, still cold even though he was in the Great Hall and surrounded by warm bodies and hot food. 

“Are you okay, Harry?” Hermione leaned into his side slightly, genuine worry on her face while Ron continued to leer at the Beauxbaton girls sitting at the Ravenclaw table. “You’re been cold the whole week! Do you feel sick?” 

“I’m fine, Mione, really. Just poor blood circulation, I think.” 

Ron focused back on them at that. “Blood circulation? What are you talking about?” 

“Honestly, Ron, don’t you know anything about the human body?” Ron made a bewildered, annoyed look while Hermione huffed and shifted in her seat to completely face away from Ron. 

Surprising much of the Great Hall, Hedwig glided down from one of the windows that she had to push open herself. Normally owls only passed through during breakfast, not dinner as they were all enjoying. She circled Harry once, waiting as he pushed some plates aside to make room for her to land. He took the rolled up note that she held in her beak—and eyed the tangled mess of string on her leg that signaled that Braith had tried and inevitably given up. He was about to slip the letter into a pocket when Hermione asked “Who’s it from, Harry? It’s not normal to get mail in the evening,” Clearly, “And you already got a letter from,” she dropped her voice low on the name “Sniffles,” as if the rest of their year weren’t already aware of the trio having a secret friend. “This morning.” 

“Ah, just a friend I met over summer break. He’s,” Harry struggled for an explanation. “A squib.” 

Ron made a face, but Hermione wasn’t facing him and Harry wanted to pretend he hadn’t seen the expression at all. Harry rubbed his hands together while Ron turned his attention back to the visiting French girls. 

Hermione reached out to take Harry’s letter, then thought better of it and pulled her hand back. She pushed her plate with a few last bites of roast beef towards Hedwig who happily set upon the meat. “I’ll be at the library until curfew if you guys will need me.” 

“I’ll go too, actually.” Harry noted Hermione’s surprise with a frown. He shoved the letter into a pocket as he continued, “I’ve been wanting to see what the school’s library had on dementors since summer.” 

“Since there were so many about last year?” Harry hurried to nod along to Hermione’s comment. “I can help you with that.” 

“Thanks, that’d be great.” He stood up, noting that Hedwig had moved from cleaning Hermione’s plate to his. 

At the library, Hermione walked with a purpose to a table close to where the restricted section began and set her bag on one of the chairs. Harry followed suit and then looked around, not knowing just where to start. “Should I look in the dark creature section or the ghost section? If there is one?” He had decided to spend his night talking to Peeves, it being a Friday he could, but he didn’t want to start questioning the poltergeist about things he could find without losing a night’s sleep. 

“Ghost section—for dementors?” Hermione stood straighter and with a stillness that Harry had long since learned was the beginning to her “this is new, must learn more” mode. “I hadn’t thought of that at all, but they certainly are like the muggle wraiths! _Ghostly creatures shrouded in dark_ ,” she quoted the last line with a hushed fervor that had Harry wondering if he’d unveiled something grand or just reminded her of something. “I’ll be right back!” She rushed away from the table, navigating the bookshelves with great purpose. 

When she returned, ten minutes later, Harry had made himself comfortable at the table and Hermione had at least eight books precariously stacked in her arms. She set them down and let them fall, all sliding so their spines gently hit the table and they fanned out gracefully before Harry. “Wow,” he breathed out. 

Either he need to spend more time with Hermione or they needed to work on getting her out of there more. 

The shortest book was titled “Necromancy: Basics and Helpful Tips” and Harry balked. “Hermione!” 

“What?” She followed his gaze and then rolled her eyes. “Oh, Harry. Necromancy isn’t really raising the dead like in the Hollywood movies. It’s about _communicating_ with the dead. It’s actually a branch of divination since the whole point of summoning spirits is to ask them about what’s happened or will happen.” 

Harry pulled the book closer, latching on to the idea of communicating with the dead with excitement. “Really? I seriously thought it was raising zombies or inferi.” 

“Rather than divination, that would fall under conjuring, a type of living-transfiguration with or without a base to work off of. Now, having a spirit possess a constructed or dead body just isn’t possible at all. It’s only in fairytales and not actually possible. The magical portraits are just impressions, more like a home video, and not partial possessions like it used to be considered. I read an excellent book last year on the discovery, from 1923. They spent all the years before thinking the portraits really were part of the spirits of the dead and they were taboo in some countries until they finally figured out that wasn’t the case.” 

“That’s fascinating,” Harry said honestly. He looked up from reading over the table of contents, surprised at how it really did remind him of their divination textbook. “So are ghosts and poltergeists souls without a body, or parts of souls like they thought portraits were?” 

“No,” Hermione sat down across from Harry and the smile on her face was warmer than he remembered seeing on her ever. It wasn’t that she had ever been standoffish and cold, not since the troll incident, but she had always been somewhat careful. Now not only was she in her element, but instead of delivering a lecture, there was an actual dialogue going on. (Harry guiltily wondered if that was a first between them.) “All classifications of spirits are formed like a clone of a soul upon death. The first mentions are from ancient Sumeria where they’re called gidams,” she pushed one of the thicker tomes titled “Spirits and Ghosts throughout Wizarding History.” “It was only in aside in the book I mentioned form last year, but there’s got to be more in this one.”

Harry set aside the book on necromancy to open that one. It was the third chapter that was titled Gidams and he turned to it to find a crude, unanimated drawing of a cloak-less dementor on it. Having been up close to one, Harry said with complete certainty “That’s a dementor.” 

Hermione let out a strangled shrieking noise as she practically laid on the table to get a better look. “Really? Are you sure? That means they have to be a type of ghost! Why don’t any of our DADA texts that list them as that though?” She gasped, “What if salt affects them like other ghosts?” Then, because she clearly hadn’t taken in another breath, she forced out her next question in a strangled whisper: “What if they remember their former lives?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might be getting a little bit carried away with this idea.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I'm just real emotional today because I read the comments I received on the first two chapters and decided to wrap up the next point on my checklist/outline for this fic that says "Hermione and more frosting" and post it now instead of hoarding it a bit.  
> No pressure on commenting, just saying that for today it worked on getting me to word vomit more.

Before he set out to find Peeves with the Marauder’s Map and his Invisibility Cloak, Harry read Braith’s letter. 

_HARRY_  
_FOREST CLEARED, LOTS TALK—DRAGONS COME_  
_WARDS SUCK, PITCH YES, CASTLE NO_  
_SEND FROSTING PLEASE,_  
_BRAITH_

Dragons. Harry was so glad he was underage and wouldn’t have to worry about the Triwizard Tournament. He set the letter on fire, shaking the flames out once the message was burnt off from the rest of the page and then headed through the common room and out into the halls. Lucky for him Peeves wasn’t that far. 

“Peeves!” He ended up stage whispering into the hall. 

The poltergeist let out a delighted giggle. “A student out after curfew?” 

Hurriedly, and not as confident as he would have liked, Harry spoke out “I’m a friend of Braith’s.” 

Peeve stilled for a moment then turned to where he knew Harry to be. Without a word, he drifted into one of the classrooms and Harry carefully followed and pulled off the Cloak. Harry wasn’t expecting Peeves to be floating there with a concerned expression. He had half expected a pie to be thrown in his face though. 

“You’re Green Eyes, then?” 

“Um, what?” 

“Braith, he kept referring to the wizard he was watching over as Green Eyes,” Peeve leaned back and folded his arms, as if he was lounging on an invisible couch. 

“Oh, then that must be me. Is… what would you say Braith is like?” 

Peeves smiled. “He’s got fun ideas. What’s this about? A prank?”

“No, I was wondering if you could tell me about deadspeak? I want to be able to talk to Braith.” 

The resounding laughter made Harry worried that they would be found by a passing teacher or prefect on patrol. When he had last looked at the Map there weren’t any in the vicinity, but that may have changed. Not all the secret passages were incorporated into the map after all. “Oh man, that’d be hilarious! But, yeah, I don’t know how to teach you. I know it’s doable, though. Probably look into the darker side of necromancy, though.” 

Harry nodded stiffly. “Okay.” Quickly, he changed the subject. “About dementors and ghosts… well. I mean, are dementors ghosts?” 

“Eh,” Peeves drew out the word and tilted his hand a bit. For a centuries old poltergeist, he was more modern than Harry was expecting him to be. Usually he only saw the ghost in the middle of a prank, or leaving the scene of one. “Apples and oranges, but, both are fruit. ‘S like that.” 

“So, yes.” 

“Yes, but no, not at all. Ghosts are a copy of the soul left behind, dementors are like… hm. How to explain this? A soul can have a ghost and a dementor come out of it at the same time. There are certain conditions needed or something. Yeah. That’s the best I’ve got.” 

Harry stared at the ghost, but apparently that lull in conversation had killed Peeves’s interest in talking to Harry. He started to float up towards the ceiling. “Hey, wait!” 

“Look, I’ve got a date with a bucket of orange paint and the Astronomy tower. Ask another ghost, though avoid the snitches.” 

“Which ones are snitches?” 

Peeves went right through the ceiling with more boisterous laughter. 

 

&&

 

Hermione tried to explain to Ron, Neville, and Ginny (and Luna who had been staring vacantly at the lake before them) her and Harry’s findings (theories) about how dementors were a type of ghost. The three purebloods (Luna was clearly miles away) were both unimpressed and unconvinced. 

“That’s what you guys have been researching all month?” Saying that Ron sounded derisive was a severe understatement. “That’s such a waste! I know there’s no Quidditch matches this year, but Harry you could have been using that time to practice more! Or fly with me! It’s bad enough you didn’t come to the Quidditch Cup finals with us.” 

Harry was incredulous. “Ron, the Death Eaters attacked—you were there.” The fact he had turned down the offer to spend more time with Braith and enjoy the Dursley’s panicking over the “faulty air conditioner” and their onslaught of nightmares and flashbacks remained his secret. (Revenge is best served cold, after all.) 

Even with the reminder of the danger that had befallen the event, Ron remained steadfast. “You still should have been there.”

Hermione brandished a book on spirits like it was a lifeline in a storm and tried to steer the conversation back on track. “Unaffiliated dementors are always found at graveyards and are able to be understood by common ghosts!” 

“Hermione,” Ginny used a gentle, patronizing tone. “Dementors are born from extremely negative emotions. They weren’t ever real people. Everyone knows that.” 

Harry watched as Hermione bristled, literally in the case of her hair. He half expected some electrical discharge to become visible with how much it frizzed. “Nowhere, _nowhere_ does it explicitly say that and if that were the case there would be dementors around all criminal asylums—or all over the world. Do you know how rough so many places are? Do you know about all the wars going on? The genocides? And yet the last census for the dementors in the entire European continent was under a thousand—and many of them were bought off the magical ministries in the Americas!” 

“Genocides?” Neville’s eyes were wide enough to pop out of skull almost. “Like what Grindlewald’s muggle minions wanted to do? Weren’t they defeated when Dumbledore beat Grindlewald?” 

Hermione stared at Neville, then looked to Harry to ensure that her fellow muggle-raised friend was just as horrified as she was. Though Harry had been relatively sheltered, he wasn’t _that_ bad off. “Muggle minions. He’s talking about the Nazis,” Harry spoke hollowly and Hermione slowly nodded. “Okay. I think, I think I’ll take Hermione to the library now. Take a breather, read a relaxing book. We’ll, uh, see you guys at dinner.” 

Confused, and not understanding how grave Hermione and Harry were considering the conversation topic, the three active listeners allowed Harry to physically drag Hermione to her feet without comment. Even when he had to grab her bag on top of his own and lead her away they were quiet. 

Luna, however, called out in a dreamy voice to them that “The world is ending, you know. That’s why all the dementors have left.” 

Ron scoffed angrily. “The dementors haven’t left.” 

“Daddy says there’s a big cover-up and that they all fled.” 

Harry hurried away from his friends. He really needed to find a book on deadspeak. 

 

&&

 

While Harry had pulled out several books on spirits and a more comprehensive tome on necromancy, Hermione had furiously gathered up all the history tomes she could find that included information on the happenings outside wizarding conclaves. There were a lot. “It’s all here,” she groused. “There’s no reason why they would be so, so—ignorant!” 

The librarian shushed them angrily, but Hermione glared back at the woman. Too shocked to do anything else, the old woman continued on her way back to her desk. 

“They don’t have any schooling before Hogwarts,” Harry carefully reminded her. “And Hogwarts only teaches about goblin wars. I think their parents only focus on teaching them to read and write, and arithmetic, and then rely on Hogwarts.” 

Hermione let out a nonsensical noise of disdain and dug her fingers into her hair as she leaned over one of the open books. “I need to fix this.” 

“You can’t do anything as a kid, and likely not for a while after you’ve graduated.” 

She finally looked back to Harry and looked surprised to find that the books he had gathered were not also history books. “Ghosts still? Wait,” She squinted at the book he had open. “Does that say ‘trap a ghost’?” 

“I, uh… think ghosts and dementors are really fascinating.” 

She considered that, then sat up with a calculating expression adorning her face. “Unspeakables are allowed to research taboo subjects like this.” 

“Oh? That’s actually really good to know.” 

“Do you think you’d rather be an Unspeakable than an Auror?” 

Harry pushed his glasses up with one hand as he rubbed at his eyes. “Why would you think I would want to be an Auror?” He'd killed a basilik and had to run for his life from a werewolf, Harry thought he should have filled his quota for life threatening experiences already. 

“Ron told me you were both going to become Aurors,” she said slowly. 

Harry scowled and Hermione matched his expression. “Lately Ron’s been getting pretty… annoying.” 

“He’s angry you’re taking an interest in something other than Quidditch. Or the Beauxbaton girls.” 

Thinking for a moment, Harry leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. “When was the last time we hung out together? The three of us, happily?” Hermione only frowned and Harry leaned back, his point unfortunately made. “I guess we’re just… growing up.” 

“We are. I don’t think he is.” Her eyes fell to her book again. “I don’t think the wizarding world has either. Everyone is so… focused only on what’s right in front of them, what only affects them in the now. Like how a child sees the world.” 

“Mione, I really don’t think we can do much of anything as students, as children ourselves. I mean, take SPEW for insistence. You can’t get the other kids interested and certainly not the adults. We can’t do anything until we’re of legal age.” Again, he lowered his voice. “When we are adults, my parents left me a lot of money. We can try to start something then, to help fix things. If you’re still game by then.” 

Hermione was touched, and looked like she was about to cry. “Are you—really, Harry?” 

“Yeah. A lot of this stuff I’m reading,” he tapped the chapter he was on, about trapping ghosts. “They’re really… I didn’t notice at first, but the authors really don’t think much about spirits. They don’t care that they can feel or think for themselves. It’s… kinda mean. All of this. And I know it’s worse for a lot of creatures, and for elves. So. I want to help. Just, I think we should wait to change everyone else's opinions until we’re older.” 

Hermione sniffled and hurriedly brought up her sleeve wipe at one of her eyes. “You’re—thank you Harry.” 

Uncomfortable, Harry shifted in his chair and looked away. “I think I should be apologizing you for not taking you seriously before. I mean, I took you seriously, but I didn’t think of it as my problem then, which… is bad. And. I think a lot of creatures are misunderstood.” 

“Yes, exactly. Just. Thank you, Harry.” 

Harry looked back to her as she wiped another grateful tear away. He made a quick decision as he did. “Hey, um, after curfew I want to… tell you about that… squib friend of mine. Braith.” 

“Okay? You can’t tell me about him now?” 

“No. We should definitely wait until night and I just have to ask that you keep an open mind about it.” 

“He’s not really a squib, is he?” 

“No. He’s not.” Harry bit his lip. “If you don’t mind sneaking out of the castle completely, we can meet him just inside the forest. We’d need to swing by the kitchens first, though.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, sorry. It just happened that way.

The day Hermione received her Hogwarts letter she had thought it was a cruel prank from one of the bullies in her class. A school for witches, like her—it wasn’t that big a leap. Once McGonagall visited and proved that, yes, magic was real, wonder had warred with incredulity. Magic was _amazing_ but why on Earth didn’t people know about it or use it to the full extent as it should be? Witch hunts were a poor excuse in the face of all the horror in the world (Hermione watched a lot of documentaries along with reading books) and it was all so… frustrating. 

Her mother had been the one to point out that if she felt so strongly about how magic should be used to better the world, she ought to stop moping and do it herself. So Hermione had made the goal to learn as much about magic as possible and become as skilled as all the greats in the magicals’ history. 

Watching a dementor eat pink frosting with his finger gave the same sensation of wonder warring with incredulity. 

Harry chuckled at her. “You’re glad I insisted on the extra warming charms now, right?” 

“Yes.” 

Harry rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling awkward at her robotic answer. “So… you believe me now, I’m guessing.” 

“Yes.” 

“Right. Okay.” 

_“Fuck, this is just riveting.”_ Braith jibed. 

“So, Braith, and also Peeves, suggested I look into deadspeak, so as to communicate with dementors like Braith because it’s really difficult for him to write stuff out as I’ve found. Peeves said to look in the darker side of necromancy but I haven’t found anything at Hogwarts. I meant to look in Knockturn Alley for stuff during the summer but I just never got around to it.”

“Deadspeak—that sounds like slang. That can’t be the proper term.” Unable to take her eyes off of Braith, Hermione also asked Harry “How am I not reliving my worst moments right now?” 

“Well, it took a while for the doom and gloom to stop bothering me, but I’ve noticed there’s less frost covering stuff around him the more frosting he gets. Maybe it also affects that and I just haven’t noticed?” 

Braith’s movements faltered and his hand half buried in the bowl of frosting. He hadn’t noticed anything was different at all. Although, he could also explain that being due to the unicorn whose flavorless soul he had feasted on the day before. Yay for trying new things again—but he didn’t think mentioning, or trying to mention that to the kids would be smart. They'd also be more inclined with bringing him frosting if they kept thinking it was doing something for his aura of doom and gloom. Though his pause was noticeable, neither commented on it and he continued on with eating the frosting. 

“Maybe,” Hermione parroted after a while. “I… okay.” 

“Braith, I was hoping we could ask you some questions? One finger for yes, two for no, three for in between?” 

Hermione moved her head, but not her gaze, in Harry’s direction. “In between?” 

“I tried asking Peeves about if dementors are like ghosts and he could only say yes and no.” 

Braith held up one finger, then made a hurried go-on motion. Any answers he would be giving would have to be in between bites of frosting since the kids hadn’t thought to cast a levitation charm on the bowl for him. 

Hermione’s eyes lit up at being able to (somewhat) communicate with Braith. “Do you remember living before being a dementor?” 

Braith held up one finger, then after thinking about it, switched to three fingers. Best way he could describe it was _“It’s complicated.”_

“So learning deadspeak should be one of our top priorities for the year.” 

“Yes,” Hermione agreed, narrowing her eyes on Braith’s hand with a pout. “We can’t ask why he befriended you this way either.” 

_“With great power comes great team-up opportunities.”_

Harry offered up another question: “Did you become a dementor on purpose?” 

Two fingers went up and Hermione added on, “Did you think there was a possibility of it happening?” The two fingers remained. “Did you conduct a dark ritual prior to you death, as far as you know?” Braith shook his hand, even as he kept the two fingers up. 

“Did you know about magic before becoming a dementor?” 

Braith, surprised with the question, inclined his head to Harry as he pointed his two fingers briefly at Harry before lifting them up above his head. 

Hermione sucked in a deep breath. Harry was just as surprised, despite having asked the question. The witch stomped her foot on the ground in frustration. “Yes or no questions are so restricting!” 

“His letter writing skills are really bad, too. Takes him forever to write one word.”

 _“You both suck eggs.”_

“Well, I’ll have to pick up as many mail-order forms as I can from the seedier bookshops in Knockturn over Winter Break.” 

Harry nodded, then grimaced as another question came to him, but not one for Braith. “Mione, please promise me you won’t tell anyone about Braith.” 

“Of course I won’t! They were going to kill Buckbeak last year even knowing he’d done nothing wrong. If we tried to tell them, without insurmountable proof that Braith is self-aware and post-human then they certainly won’t be of any help to us. Actually they may just throw us in the psych ward of Saint Mungo’s without even checking if Braith is real!” 

“I have no idea what insurmountable means but, yeah. Yes. All that.” 

_“People are dicks,”_ Braith used his most helpful tone, even though there wasn’t anyone around competent enough to understand him. _“Also I really like this whole thing where you guys work hard and I loll about and eat magical creature souls for shits and giggles.”_


End file.
